To effect a confusion of ideas is an old scheme of the Devil.
Not to understand clearly and precisely is generally the source
of intellectual error. In time of schism and heresy, to cloud and
distort the proper sense of words is a fruitful artifice of
Satan, and it is as easy to lay snares for the intellectually
proud as for the innocent. Every heresy in the Church bears
testimony to Satan's success in deceiving the human intellect by
obscuring and perverting the meaning of words. Arianism was a
battle of words and owed its longcontinued success to its verbal
chicanery. Pelagianism and Jansenism showed the same
characteristic, and today Liberalism is as cunning and obscure as
any of its heretical predecessors. (64)

For some, Liberalism consists in certain political forms; for
others, in a certain tolerant and generous spirit opposed to
despotism and tyranny; for others again it means simply civil
equality; for many it becomes a vague and uncertain sentiment
which shapes itself into opposition to all arbitrary government.
Although already defined it will not be amiss to define
Liberalism again.

In the first place no political form of any kind whatsoever,
whether democratic or popular, is of itself (ex se) Liberalism.
Forms are mere forms and nothing more. Forms of government do not
constitute their essence. Their forms are but their accidents.
Their essence consists in the civil authority by virtue of which
they govern, whether that authority be in form republican,
democratic, aristocratic, monarchical; it may be an elective,
hereditary, mixed or absolute monarch. These various forms of
themselves have nothing to do with Liberalism. Any one of the may
be perfectly and integrally Catholic. If they accept beyond their
own sovereignty the sovereignty of God, if they confess that they
derive their authority from Him, if they submit themselves to the
inviolable rule of the Christian law; if they hold for
indisputable in their parliaments all that is defined by this
law; if they acknowledge as the (65) basis of public right the
supreme morality of the Church and her absolute right in all
things within her own competency, they are truly Catholic
governments, whatever be their form; and the most exacting
Ultramontanism cannot reproach them.

History offers the repeated example of republican powers which
have been fervently Catholic. Such was the aristocratic republic
of Venice, such the merchant republic of Genoa, such in our day
are certain Swiss Cantons; as examples of mixed monarchies truly
Catholic, that of Catalognia and Aragon, the most democratic and
at the same time the most Catholic of the Middle Ages; the
ancient monarchy of Castile up to the advent of the House of
Austria; the elective monarchy of Poland up to the time of the
iniquitous dismemberment of that most religious realm. To believe
that monarchies are of themselves (ex se) more religious than
republics is an ignorant prejudice. The most scandalous example
of persecution against Catholicity in modern time, have been
given by monarchies, for instance by Russia and by Prussia.

A Government, whatever be its form, is Catholic, if its
constitution, its legislation and its politics, are based on
Catholic principles; it is Liberal if it bases its constitution,
its legislation and its politics on (66) rationalistic
principles. It is not the act of legislation by the king in a
monarchy, by the people in a republic or by both in a mixed form
of government, which constitutes the essential nature of its
legislation or of its constitution. What constitutes this is
whether it does or does not carry with it the immutable seal of
the Faith, and whether it be or be not conformable with what the
Christian law imposes upon States as well as individuals. Just as
amongst individuals, a king in his purple, a noble with his
escutcheon or a workman in his overalls can be truly Catholic, so
States can be Catholic, whatever be the place assigned them in
the scale of governmental forms. In consequence the fact of being
Liberal or antiliberal has nothing whatever to do with the horror
which every one ought to entertain for despotism and tyranny, nor
with the desire of civil equality between all citizens; much less
with the spirit of toleration and of generosity, which, in their
proper acceptation, are Christian virtues. And yet all this in
the language of certain people and certain journals is called
Liberalism. Here we have an instance of a thing which has the
appearance of Liberalism and which in reality is not Liberalism
at all.

On the other hand there exists a thing which is really
Liberalism, and yet has not (67) the appearance of Liberalism.
Let us suppose an absolute monarchy like that of Russia, or of
Turkey, or better still one of the conservative governments of
our times, the most conservative imaginable; let us suppose that
the constitution and the legislation of this monarchy or of this
government is based upon the principle of the absolute and free
will of the king or upon the equally unrestricted will of the
conservative majority, in place of being based on the principles
of Catholic right, on the indestructibility of the Faith, or upon
a rigorous regard of the rights of the Church; then this monarchy
and this conservative government would be thoroughly Liberal and
antiCatholic. Whether the freethinker be a monarch with his
responsible ministry, or a responsible minister with his
legislative corps, as far as consequences are concerned, it is
absolutely the same thing. In both cases their political conduct
is in the direction of freethought and therefore it is Liberal.
Whether or not it be the policy of such a government to place
restraints upon the freedom of the press; whether, no matter
under what pretext, it grinds its subjects, and rules with a rod
of iron, a country so governed though it will not be free, will
without doubt be liberal. Such were the ancient Asiatic
monarchies, such are many of our modern monarchies, such was the
government of Bismarck in Germany; such is the monarchy of Spain,
whose constitution declares the king inviolable but not God.

Here then we have something which without seeming to resemble
Liberalism is really Liberalism, the more subtle and dangerous
precisely because it has not the appearance of the evil it is.

We see then what care must be used in treating questions of
this kind. It is of great importance above all that the terms of
the discussion be carefully defined and that equivocations be
studiously avoided which would favor error more than the truth.